Moving from NX6 to NX8. Key differences I should know about?

[teookie]

I have not had time to research this at all. What are the key differences between NX6 and NX8 that I might prefer to know before I start using NX8 next Monday. Thanks in advance...

 

[PDW]

What are you using it for?
Modeling, drafting, CAE, CAM,... ?

Its is a bit short to ask this question in this forum .
For this type of question, you can check the Whats new, which you can download from the Gtac site, or in the Documentation.
Or if your comapny wants to spent some $$, there are on-site or on-line trainings available, this to help on an upgrade training.

 

[JohnRBaker]

First off I would recommend that you get copies of the NX 7.5 and NX 8.0 'What's New' Guides.

That being said, some of the biggies are:

No longer being able to create Assembly Mating Conditions as the move to Assembly Constraints was completed in NX 7.5. Old Mating Conditions will be honored and will update as they've always done but you will not be able to create any NEW Mating Conditions. Also you can't mix and match Mating Conditions and Assembly Constraints, it's all one or the other, but you can convert the now legacy Mating Conditions to Assembly Constraints. This can be done either when editing an Assembly or by setting the appropriate options in the 'refile' utility.

Faceted Reference Sets are no longer supported having been replaced by 'Lightweight Representations' which are now independent of Reference Sets. Also, the out-of-the-box default is to both save all parts with Lightweight Representations being created automatically and when opening an Assembly, using these same Lightweight Representations. Again, here is where the refile utilities can be used to update all of your legacy files so as to have the proper Lightweight Representations created and saved in your part files.

Also Attributes have been completely refurbished and enhanced in NX 8.0 and while there is no need to change anything that you've done in the past, if you do use Attributes on a regular basis you should look at the changes that were made since there is so much more that you can now do that you simply couldn't do before. And as part of this, it has been made a lot easier and more reliable to link Attributes to Expressions and vice versa.

Also, Instance Feature has been replaced with the new 'Pattern Feature' function which provides not only enhanced associative behavior but also extensive new options and capabilities that was impossible before.

Many enhancements have been made to the Sketcher including Patterning sketch elements, auto-dimensioning, etc.

TrueType/OpenType fonts are now supported in Drafting.

NX Help files (i.e. 'documentation') have been completely reformatted and reorganized using a modern browser environment including powerful search functions (but there are some issues with getting the right JAVA support so you may need to get some help from GTAC to get everything set-up correctly).

Anyway, that should get you started but as I said, it's best to review the NX 7.5 and NX 8.0 'What's New Guides'.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[SDETERS]

Do not forget the most important one. Associative Helix!

 

[jerry1423]

utilize the command finder